Dear Lifehacker,
I love my Android phone, but lately it seems like it's taking 10 minutes for the GPS to get a lock, which makes navigation very difficult. What can I do to make it work better?

Sincerely,
Never Navigating

Dear Never Navigating,
This is a problem that has plagued Android users for awhile, and while the root cause can vary from person to person and device to device, there are usually a few things you can do to help fix the problem. Here's what you should try.

Make Sure You're Using Assisted GPS

Before you do anything else, you should make sure your GPS has all the help it can get. Android phones use what's called Assisted GPS, or AGPS, to determine your location. AGPS uses not only GPS satellites, but also nearby cell towers and Wi-Fi networks to lock onto your phone, and you want to make sure you have this feature enabled. To do so, head to Settings > Location & Security and make sure both "Use Wireless Networks" and "Use GPS Satellites" are checked. By default, your phone only uses GPS satellites, so adding wireless networks should help quite a bit.

Reset Your Assisted GPS Data with GPS Status & Toolbox

Using AGPS, of course, can't always fix everything. In fact, sometimes your AGPS will keep trying to use satellites or towers that aren't nearby, which makes it hard to get a lock. If you're still having trouble, head to the Android Market and download GPS Status & Toolbox. Essentially, this app lets you flush and re-download your AGPS data, which can help re-acquire the correct satellites. Once you've downloaded the app, here's what you need to do:

Launch GPS Status & Toolbox. You'll see a compass and some other stats. Hit the menu button for more options.

Make sure you have an active data connection and go to "Manage A-GPS State". Then, tap the "Download" button in the menu that pops up. When it's done, exit the app.

Now, go back to Google Maps (or whatever app you use to navigate) and try to get a lock. You should find that it's much quicker than before.

The one downside to this method is that it isn't necessarily a permanent fix. You may have to do this again every so often to get the GPS locking quickly again, but it's a small price to pay to be able to navigate again.

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Even better, though, is flashing a new radio. It works just like flashing a new ROM, though it can be a bit riskier. It also varies from device to device, so we can't give specific instructions or links here, but we recommend searching around forums like XDA Developers to see if there are any other radios out for your device (if there are any specifically designed to fix GPS problems, that's even better. My HTC Thunderbolt, for example, had a few other radios available, and flashing one of them fixed a lot of my GPS problems. Just make sure you get one that's been given the stamp of approval by the community, since flashing a new radio can cause all sorts of problems if they're untested.

There are other methods of fixing your GPS (like this configuration tweak in CyanogenMod), but for the most part the above tricks are easy and should work very well. Remember that if your phone ever reverts to its old, finicky ways, try rerunning GPS Status & Toolbox, as its pretty reliable at quickly getting a lock.

Sincerely,
Lifehacker

P.S. Have you found any other fixes to the crappy GPS problem? Share them with us in the comments.